During the early hours of this Saturday to Sunday, sleep, party or work will last one hour less. The clocks will go forward and summer time will begin in Spain, as has been the case for 52 years. At 2:00, it will be 3:00 on the Peninsula and at 1:00 in the Canary Islands it will be 2:00. From now on, sunrise and sunset will begin later and later.
It will be celebrated by 66% of citizens who prefer summer time over winter time, according to 2023. However, experts from associations such as the Spanish Sleep Society (SES) and the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) consider that the change should not be made and, if one is chosen, the most appropriate schedule would be winter time. The position of the SES is that “it promotes a more stable biological rhythm than that of summer, improves intellectual performance and helps reduce the appearance of cardiovascular diseases, obesity, insomnia and depression.”
It can take up to five days to adapt and regulate the circadian rhythm, the internal clock that coordinates body temperature, hormone release or digestion and that works in response to light and darkness. “Light is the main synchronizer of our biological clock,” explains María José Martínez Madrid, coordinator of the Chronobiology working group of the Spanish Sleep Society. That is why, for example, it is also counterproductive to expose yourself to screen lighting before going to sleep.
The specialist argues: “We secrete melatonin, the sleep hormone, one or two hours before going to sleep and that adjusts to the loss of sunlight, but if there is still light at 9:00 p.m., a hormonal imbalance is generated that causes insomnia, fatigue and tiredness, especially in older adults and children.” School-age children should sleep 11 hours and in some parts of the country it is still daytime when it is time for them to go to bed, plus they have a less mature circadian system, so it is more difficult to adapt. Older adults are the other vulnerable population because their circulatory system has less flexibility in the face of any alteration. To prepare, it is recommended to advance your meal, exercise and bedtime by a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes each day.
67% of Spaniards would prefer that winter and summer schedules do not alternate and want to “end the time change,” according to the CIS. “This jet lag forced disorients us for a few days, but what is most disconcerting is that cities like Santiago de Compostela share time with Berlin or Belgrade, while with Porto there is an hour difference,” Jaume Vallès complained this week. In Spain, the time zone of central Europe governs, which increases the lag with respect to the solar rhythm, when that of Western Europe (Portugal) would be more appropriate, because most of the territory is located west of the meridian of Greenwich.
Along these lines, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, would propose to the European Council to put an end to the time change starting in 2026, but the initiative has not been successful at the European level for the moment, so the adjustment remains. “It barely helps save energy and has a negative impact on people’s health and lives,” the president explained then. Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen had also committed to working to achieve consensus and argued that, for the European Executive, it was “the most logical path to follow.”
A stalled debate
To modify it, it is necessary, in addition to the fact that each Member State would have to apply this decision later in its own country. In 2019, the European Parliament had approved eliminating the changes from 2021, but the member countries did not reach an understanding. States such as Finland and Poland supported it, while Portugal announced that it would maintain the current plan, and in Spain the commission of experts did not reach an agreement. At least 15 countries—representing 65% of the population—should vote in favor of repealing the directive that establishes the current system.
The biannual adjustment has been made in Spain since 1974. Most European countries established the time change in the early 1970s due to the energy crisis derived from the increase in oil prices, in order to make the working day coincide with sunlight and thus limit the use of electrical energy. Later, in 2001, a European directive harmonized the seasonal change. After, .
The stipulated date for the next time change will be Sunday, October 25. According to the European Commission’s calendar, which is drawn up every five years, the clocks will continue to be adjusted until at least 2031.
